Yukiko competed in both the women's duet with her partner Chisa Kobayashi, and the women's team events at the 2012 Summer Olympics; she finished in fifth place in both competitions.[4]
Inui has also been a regular competitor at the World Aquatics Championships, taking part in the 2009, 2011 and 2013 tournaments.[5] Her notable podium victories to date include the Asian Games where she has won six silver medals at Guangzhou and Incheon.
At the 2016 Summer Olympics, she won two bronze medals, one in the duet event with Risako Mitsui, and one in the team event.[4]
She won bronze at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships in the Solo Technical Event.[6]
At the 2022 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, Inui won the first medal in any sport of the Championships, winning the gold medal in the solo technical routine, with a score of 92.8662 points.[7][8][9][10] Her gold medal was the first for Japan in the event at a FINA World Aquatics Championships and was choreographed to music by fellow Japanese Hideki Togi in the theme of "The legend of Phoenix".[1] In the preliminaries of the solo free routine two days later, she achieved a score of 94.5667 points and qualified for the final ranking first.[11] For the final, she scored 95.3667 points to win the gold medal, another first gold medal for the country of Japan in the event at a FINA World Aquatics Championships.[2][12] Her two gold medals made Japan the third country in the 21st century, after Russia and China, to win multiple gold medals in artistic swimming at a single FINA World Aquatics Championships.[13]
